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THE 



kstradion of ^tpMicaiiism 



OBJECT OF THE REBELLION. 



THE TESTIMONY OF SOUTHERN WITNESSES. 



By LORING moody. 



SECOND EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THE EMANCIPATION LEAGUE, 
Office, No. 22 Bromfield Street. 

1863. 



Despotism hates Freedom with " a perfect hatred," and has so 
hunted her down that she has never yet found a perfect resting- 
place for the sole of her foot on this planet. Moreover it has no 
faith in the people. Its servants have always despised and hated 
the people, especially the working people. 

Now the leaders of this Rebellion are the sworn servants of 
Despotism. Their open avowals and declarations during the last 
thirty years, show clearly enough that they are aiming to dis- 
franchise and degrade the great mass of the people to absolute 
slavery, without regard to color or race. They tell us plainly 
that they never mean to stop in their wicked career until " the 
capitalists own the laborers," whether " white or black ! " And 
already they tell us that " slavery has become the ' chief head of 
the corner ' in their new edifice ! " 

The design of this work is to show, from the testimony of the 
prime movers and leaders in this Rebellion, and those in sympathy 
with them, that this is an open and undisguised conflict between 
the opposing principles of Freedom and Despotism ; that the 
leaders of the rebellion are fighting to break down and destroy 
the government of Freedom which our Fathers founded, and to 
establish a despotic, slaveholding aristocracy on its ruins. 

Let every one then read and ponder the declarations of these 
men. 

We will go back more than thirty years, and begin with the 
testimony of 

B. Watkins Leigh, (Va.) 
" In every civilized country under the sun, some there must be who labor 
for their daily bread, — men who tend the herds, and dig the soil, — who 
have no real nor personal capital of their own, and who earn their daily 
bread by the sweat of their brow. I have as sincere feelings of regard 
for that people as any man who Hves among them. But I ask gentlemen 
to say, whether they believe that those who depend on their daily labor for 
their daily subsistence, can, or do, ever enter into political affairs ? They 
never do, never will, never can." — Speech in Virginia Convention, 1829. 

Chancellor Harper, (S. C.) 
" Would you do a benefit to the horse, or the ox, by giving him a culti- 
vated understanding, a fine feeling ? So far as the mere laborer has the 
pride, the knowledge, or the aspiration of a freeman, he is unfitted for his 
situation. If there are sordid, servile, laborious offices to be performed, is 
it not better that there should be sordid, servile, laborious beings to perform 
them ? Odium has been cast upon our legislation on account of its forbid- 
ding the elements of education being communicated to slaves. But, in truth, 



what injury is done them by this ? He who worhs during the day with his 
hands does not read in the intervals of leisure, for his amusement, or the 
improvement of his miiid ; or the exception is so very rare as scarcely to 
need the being provided foi'." — Southern Literary Messenger. 

George M'Duffie. 

" If we look into the elements of which all political communities are 
composed, it will be found that servitude in some form is one of the essen- 
tial constituents. ... In the very nature of things, there must be 
classes of persons to discharge all the different offices of society, from the 
highest to the lowest. . . . Where these offices are performed by mem- 
bers of the political community, a dangerous element is obviously introduced 
by the body politic. . . . Domestic slavery, therefore, instead of being 
an evil, is the corner-stone of our republican edifice." — Message 
to S. G. Legislature, 1835. 

John C. Calhoun. 
"We regard slavery as the most safe and stable basis ^oy free institutions 
in the world. It is impossible with us that the conflict should take place 
between labor and capital. Every plantation is a little community, with 
the master at its head, who concentrates in himself the united interests of 
capital and labor, of which he is the common representative." 

F. W. Pickens, (S. C.) 

"All society settles down into a classification of capitalists and laborers. 
The former will own the latter, either collectively through the government, 
or individually in a state of domestic servitude, as exists in tlie Southern 
States of this confederacy. If laborers ever obtain the political power of a 
country, it is in fact in a state of revolution." 

" Hence it is, that they must have a strong federal government to control 
the labor of the nation. But it is precisely the reverse with us. We have 
already not only a right to the proceeds of our laborers, but we own a class 
of laborers themselves. But, let me say to gentlemen who represent the 
great class of capitalists at the North, beware how you drive us into a sepa- 
rate system, for, if you do, as certain as the decrees of Heaven, you will 
be com])elled to appeal to the sword to maintain yourselves at home. It 
may not come in your day; but your children's children will be covered with 
the blood of dotnestic factions, and a plundering mob contending for power 
and conquest." — Speech in Congress, January 21, 1837. 

Here we have the testimony of five prominent Soutliern states- 
men, some of which has been on record more than thirty years, 
bearing directly on this point. And it will be observed that not one 
of them makes any allusion whatever to color or race; but slaves 
and laborers are spoken of as belonging to the same class, and 
holding the same relations to society. And both are doomed to 
the same state of civil and social debasement, so as to form what 
another slaveholding statesman has spoken of, in language of 
genuine " Southern elegance " as " the mudsills of society." 



Following the lead of these statesmen, the press began to reit- 
erate these anti-republican sentinaents, with much more boldness 
and even arrogance. It no longer deprecated the existence of 
slavery as an " evil," but assumed the ground of its inherent 
rightfulness, and undertook its defence accordingly. During the 
Kansas controversy, the following sentiments were boldly pro- 
claimed by the " Richmond Enquirer " : — 

" The South once thought her own institutions wrongful and inexpe- 
dient. It thinks so no longer, and will insist that they shall be protected 
and extended by the arm of the Federal government, equally with the 
institutions of the North." 

Again it says : — 

" Repeatedly have we asked the North, * has not the experiment of uni- 
versal liberty failed ? Are not the evils of free society insufferable ? And 
do not most thinking men among you propose to subvert and reconstruct it.* 
Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive pi'oof, added 
to many other conclusive evidences we have furnished, that free society, in 
the long run, is an impracticable form of society. It is everywhere, 
starving, demoralized and insurrectionery. AVe repeat, then, that policy 
and humanity alike forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new 
people and coming generations." 

The following plain speaking on this point is from the '•'■ Rich- 
mond Examiner " ; — 

" Until recently the defence of slavery has labored under great difBcul- 
ties, because its apologists took half-way ground. They confined the 
defence of slavery to mere negro slavery ; thereby giving up the slavery 
principle, admitting other forms of slavery to be ivro7ig. The line of 
defence, however, is now changed. The South maintains that slavery is 
right, natural and necessary, and does not depend upon difference of com- 
plexion. The laws of the slave States justify the holding of white men 
in bondage." 

And still more blunt and downright is the following from the 

" Charleston Mercury " ; — 

" Slavery is the natural and normal condition of the laboring man, 
whether white or black." 

DESPOTISM OPPOSED TO EDUCATION. 

As learning is the friend of Freedom and the foe of Tyranny, 
the despotic slave power not only ^''forbids the elements of 
education being communicated to slaves," but arrays itself in 
deadly hostility to the cause of education among the people gener- 
ally. 



It utters its maledictions against the New England common 
school system, after this sort, through one of its organs, the 
" Richmond Examiner,''^ Dec. 28, 1855 : — 

" We have got to hating every thing with the prefix fi-ee — from free 
negroes down and up, through the wliole catalogue of abominations, dema- 
gogueries, lusts, philosophies, fanaticism, and follies, free farms, free labor, 
free niggers, free society, free will, free thinking, free love, free wives, free 
children, and free schools, all belonging to the same brood of damnable 
isms, whose mother is Sin and whose daddy is the Devil. 

" But the worst of all these abominations — because, when once installed, 
it becomes the hot-bed propagator of all — is the modern system of free 
schools. We forget who it is that has charged and proved that the New 
England system of free schools has been the cause and prolific soui'ce of 
all the legions of horrible infidelities and treasons that have turned her 
cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her fair land into the common 
nestling-place of howling bedlamites. We abominate the system because 
the schools are free, and because there ought to be no mob road to learn- 
ing." 

The unequivocal utterances of the Southern press, of which 
the above extracts are only a few samples from a large stock, 
plainly foreshadow the ultimate designs of the leaders and 
movers of the Rebellion. " Slavery is the natural condition of 
the laboring man.'^ " The laws of the slave States justify the 
holding of ivhite men in bondage." 

Who are " laboring men " ? The millions in the North and 
elsewhere, whose ivoi'k fills our granaries and warehouses, freights 
our ships with its inestimable products, beautifies and adorns the 
earth, and surrounds us with material and even spiritual bless- 
ings. 

That these infamous doctrines and practices have brought forth 
their legitimate fruits, is seen in the astounding fact that there 
are sevenlyjive thousand free while adult men and women in A^ii-- 
ginia, unable to read or write. Nor is this state of things con- 
fined to Virginia, as will be shown by the following extract from 
the Georgia " Federal Unions 

"A generous patriotism is startled by the fact as it stood in 1840: 
upward of 30,000 free white grown-up citizens in Georgia unable to read 
or write a word of their mother tongue ! Ten years roll by, 1850 comes, 
and the number in that short time has swollen to 41,000 ! Many have 
looked with anxiety at these figures (and surely not without the best of 
reasons) who have not noticed the most distressing feature of the case. 
We refer to the rapidity with which the number of entirely uneducated 
freemen in Georgia increases. It increases more rapidly than tlie entire 



8 

population does. By reference to the last census, it will be seen that 
between 1840 and 1850 the rate of increase of the entire white popula- 
tion was a little under 28 per cent. During the same time the rate of 
increase of the number of adult citizens in the State unable to read or 
write was over 34^ per cent. It is only by distinctly observing this rapid 
increase that we see the facts in their appalling magnitude. This vast 
army of forty-one thousand will he more than doubled in thirty years ! At 
the rate of the increase shown by the census, it will have within its ranks 
in the year 1900, one hundred and seventy thousand of the citizens of 
Georgia." 

Having taken away the key of knowledge from the laborers in 
their midst, and surrounded thefe with the thick clouds of dark- 
ness and ignorance, the Southern despots commenced the process 
of " subjugating " the people of the North by arrogant assump- 
tions of superiority in their daily intercourse, and even in the 
halls of Congress. That the inevitable tendencies of the slave 
system were such as to create a desire for universal domination 
over all within reach of its influence was clearly foreseen and 
stated by Jefiferson and others. " An evil tree cannot bring forth 
good fruit ; " and this accursed " Upas " has brought forth its 
ripened products. 

In a letter of Thomas Jefferson to M. Warville, Paris, Feb. 
1788, speaking of the intercourse between master and slave, he 
says : — 

" The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, 
puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his 
WORST PASSIONS ; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in 
tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities." 

Hon. Lewis Summers, Judge of the General Court of Virginia, 
and a slaveholder, said, in a speech before the Virginia Legisla- 
ture, in 1832 (see " Richmond Whig;' Jan. 26, 1832) :— 

" A slave population exercises the most pernicious influence upon the 
manners, habits, and character of those among whom it exists. Lisping 
infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts the embryo 
tyrant of its little domain. The consciousness of superior destiny takes 
possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love of power and ride 
' grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.' Unless enabled 
to rise above the operation of those powerful causes, he enters the world 
with miserable notions of self-importance, and under the government of an 

UNBRIDLED TEMPER." 

Few, indeed, have been " enabled to rise above the operation 
of these powerful causes." And accordingly we find that not 



9 

only the slaveholders, but the great mass of "poor white trash" 
associated with thetn, have "entered the world with miserable 
notions of self-importance, and under the government of an 
unbridled temper^'' the " odious peculiarities " of which have 
manifested themselves under every trifling pretext. 
Says the " Richmond Enquirer " ; — 

" The relations between the North and South are very analogous to 
those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman empire after the 
subjugation of Achaia by the consul Mummius. The dignity and energy 
of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were not easily 
tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature. The degenerate 
and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the handicraft and polite 
professions. We learn, from the vigorous invectives of Juvenal, that they 
were the most useful and capable of servants, whether as pimps or pro- 
fessors of rh(!toric. Obsequious, dexterous, and ready, the versatile Greeks 
monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the 
Roman Empire — allowing their masters ample leisure for the service of 
the State, in the senate or in the field. The people of the Northern 
States of this confederacy exhibit the same aptitude for the arts of indus- 
try. Tliey excel as clerks, mechanics, and tradesmen, and they have 
monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and peddling." 

The same paper, in its issue of June 2, 185(3, holds the follow- 
ing language, in reference to the murderous assault of Preston 
S. Brooks upon the Hon. Charles Sumner : — 

"In the main, the press of the South applaud the conduct of Rlr. 
Brooks, without condition or limitation. Our approbation at least is entire 
and unreserved. We consider the act good in conce|)tion, better in execu- 
tion, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitioni.^ts in the 
Senate are getting ahm^e themselves. They have been humored until they 
forget their position. They have grown saucy, and dure to be impudent to 
gentlemen. Isow they are a low, mean, scurvy set, with some little book 
learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit and honor as a pack of curs. 
Intrenched behind 'privilege/ they fancy they can slander the South and 
its representatives with impunity. 

"Tlie truth is, they have been suffered to run too long without collars. 
They must be lashed into submission. Sumner, in particular, ought to 
have nine-and-thirty early every morning. He is a great strapping fellow, 
and could stand the cowhide beautifully. Brooks frightened him, and, at 
the first blow of the cane, he bellowed like a bull-calf. 

" There is the blackguard Wilson, an ignorant Natick cobbler, swaggej- 
ing in excess of muscle, and absolutely dying for a beating. Will not 
somebody take him in hand ? Hale is another huge, red-faced, sweating 
scoundrel, whom some gentleman should kick and cuff until he abates 
something of his impudent talk. 

" We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks, that 
so a curb may be imposed upon the truculence and audacity of abolition 
speakers. If need be, let us have a caning or cowfdding every day. If 
the worst comes to the worst, so much the sooner, so much the better." 



10 

Says the " Muscogee Herald,^^ (Ala.) : — 

"'Free Society!' We sicken a,t the name. What is it but a con- 
glomex'ation of greasy mechanics, Jilthy operat/'res, srnaU-Jisted farmers and 
moonstruck theorists^ All the Northern ami especially the New England 
States, are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevailing 
class one meets with, is that of mechanics, struggling to be genteel, and 
small farmers, who do their own drudgery, and yet who are hardly fit for 
association with a Southern gentleman's body servant." 

When these mechanics lose all self-respect, cease " struggling," 
and, sinking dov^n into a state of ntter hopelessness, fall under the 
task-master's lash ; and when these " small farmers," doomed to 
the same degraded condition, shall do the " drudgery" of genteel 
"' masters " instead of " their own," they will be, in the estimation 
of these despotic traitors, in their proper places. 

Following these arrogant assumptions of superiority. Southern 
politicians began to utter terrible threats of disunion and destruc- 
tion to the whole country, unless every one of their desires and 
schemes, no matter how tyrannical and devilish, were at once 
gratified and carried out with alacrity by the North. The South 
would accept nothing that savored of halting or hesitation. The 
North must bow down and serve it with " all its might and soul 
and strength." 

The nomination of Fremont for president in 1856 was made 
the pretext for renewing with increased vigor the agitation of tiie 
project of the dissolution of the Union, which for thirty years 
had been the ultimate design of the Southern politicians. From 
1856 to 1860 it was discussed, and its purpose avowed with great 
freedom and boldness throughout the South and evQu in the halls 
of Congiess. The following statements and declarations of 
Southern statesmen and politicians, clearly indicate the objects 
and designs of the leaders of the Rebellion. The reader will 
observe that they all have the merit of clearness of statement, 
and directness of purpose. " Diive the ' black Republican ' out 
of the Temple of Liberty," exclaims Mr. Toombs, " or pull down 
its pillars and involve him in a common ruin ! " 

It will also be noticed that, in order to carry out their plots 
with greater certainty of success, the conspirators had chosen to 
accomplish their wicked designs in the names of " Libert// " and 
" Democracy.'^ They knew well the force of names, and, that " a 
lie shall keep its throne a whole age longer if it skulk baliind the 
shelter of some fair seeming name." So they assumed those 



11 

names and ideas dearest to the people as the surest and readiest 
way to lead them blindfolded to their ruin. And so " Demo- 
cratic " statesmen and " Democratic " editors talked loudly of 
Liberty, sung the praises of Liberty, shouted the sacred name of 
LIBERTY, while they strangled her within her very sanctuary. 
Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, a leading member of the U. S. 
Senate, and chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 185G, said : — 

" When Fremont is elected, we must rely upon what we have — a good 
State Government. Every Governor of the South should call the Legisla- 
ture of his State together, and have measures of the South decided upon. 
If they did not, and submit to the degradation, they would deserve the fate of 
slaves. I should advise my Legislature to go at the tap of the drum." 

Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, made a fiery speech at Lynch- 
burgh, Va., in 1856, and in view of the apprehended election of 
Col. Fremont, exclaimed : — 

"I tell you now, that if Fremont is e\Qc\.c^(\, adherence to the Union is 
treason to liberty. [Loud cheers.] I tell you now, that the Southern man 
who will submit to his election is a traitor and a coward." [Enthusiastic 
cheers.] 

This speech was indorsed as " sound doctrine " by the Hon. 
John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War. 

For his attempted (and nearly successful) assassination of 
Senator Sumner, Mr. Preston S. Brooks was coinpliiuented by an 
ovation at the hands of his constituents, at which Senators Butler, 
of South Carolina, and Toombs, of Georgia, assisted. The hero 
of the day, Mr. Brooks, made a speech on the occasion, from 
which the following is an extract; — 

" We have the issue upon us now ; and how are we to meet it ? I tell 
you, fellow citizens, from the bottom of my heart, that the only mode which 
I think available for meeting it, is just to tear the Ctnstitution of the United 
States, trample it under foot, and form a Southern Confederacy, every State 
of which icill be a slaveholding Slate. [Loud and pioloiiged cheers.] I 
believe it, as I stand in the face of my ^laker; I believe it on my responsi- 
bility to you as your honored representative, that the only hope of tlie South 
is in the Sotith, and that the only available means of making tltal hope effec- 
tive is to cut asunder the bonds that tie us together, and take our separate 
position in the family of nations. These are my opinions. They have 
always been my opinions. I hare been a disunionist from the time 1 could 
think. ********** 

" Now, fellow citizens, I have told you very frankly and undisguisedly, 
that 1 believe the only hope of the South is in dissolving the bonds uhich 
connect us with the Government — in separating the living body from the dead 
carcass. If I was the commander of an army, I never would post a sentinel 
who would not swear that slavery is rigid. * * * / « « 



12 

"I speak on my individual responsibility: If Fremont he elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, lam for the people in their majesty rising above 
the law and leaders, taking tJie power in their oion hands, going hy concert 
or not by concert, and laying the strong arm of Southern freemen upon the 
treasury and archives oj the Government." [Applause.] 

The Charleston '' Mercury^'' the recognized organ of the South 
Carolina Democracy, says : — 

"■ Upon the policy of dissolving the Union, of separating the South from 
her Northern enemies, and establishing a Southern Confederacy, parties, 
presses, politicians, and people, are a U7iit. There is not a single public man 
in her limits, not one of her present Representatives or Senators in Congress, 
who is not pledged to the lips in favor of disunion. Indeed, we well remem- 
ber that one of the most prominent leaders of the co-qperation party, when 
taunted with submission, rebuked the thought by saying, '■that in opposing 
secession, he only took a step backward to strike a blow more deadly against 
the Union.' " 

In the autumn of 1856, Henry A. Wise, then Governor of 
Virginia, told the people of that State that 

"The South could not, without degradation, submit to the election of a 
Black Republican President. To tell me we should submit to the election 
of a Black Republican, under clicunistances like these, is to tell me that 
Virginia and the fourteen slave States are already subjugated and degraded 
[cheers] ; that the Southern people are without spirit, and without purpose 
to defend the rights they know and dare not maintain. [Cheers.] If you 
submit to the election of Fremont, you will prove what Seward and Bur- 
lingame said to be true — that the South cannot be kicked out of the 
Union." 

During the presidentitil campaign of 1856, the Washington 

correspondent of the " New Orleans Delta,^^ wrote : — 

" It is already arraiiged, in the event of Fremont's election, or a failure 
to elect by the people, to call the legislatures of Virginia, South Carolina 
and Georgia to concert measures to withdraw from the Union before Fre- 
mont can get possession of the army and navy, and the purse-strings of 
government. Governor Wise is actively at work already in the matter. 
The South can rely on the President in the emergency contemplated. The 
question now is, whether the people of the South will sustain their leaders." 

At a Union meeting held at Knoxville, Tenn., Judge Daily, 
formerly of Georgia, made a violent Southern speech, in the 
course of which he said : — 

" During the Presidential contest. Governor Wise had addressed letters 
to all the Southern governors, and that the one to the Governor of Florida 
had been shown him, in which Governor Wise said he had an army in readi- 
ness to prevent Fremont from taking his seat, if elected, and asking the 
cooperation of those to whom he wrote." 

Here we see that Governor Wise declared that he had an army 
in readiness to overthrow the government of 1856 ; and by the 



13 

following it is shown that he relied upon seizing the United States 

arsenal at Harper's Ferry, for arming his army — thus proposing 

to do the same thing which John Brown was hung for doing two 

years later. 

Charles J. Faulkner, formerly a Representative in Congress from 

Virginia, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee, 

in 1856, at a Democratic meeting held in Virginia, over which he 

presided, said : — 

" When that noble and gallant son of Virginia, Henry A. Wise, declared, 
as was said he did in October, 1856, that if Fremont should be elected, he 

"WOULD SEIZE THE NATIONAL ArSENAL AT HaRPER's FeRRY, hoW few 

would, at that time, have justified so bold and decided a measure ? It is the 
fortune of some great and gifted minds to see far in advance of their con- 
temporaries. Should William H. Seward be elected in 1860, where is the 
man now in our midst, w7^o ivould not call for the impeachment of a Governor 
of Virginia who toould silently suffer that armory to pass under the control 
of such an Executive head f " 

The " Richmond Enquirer," long one of the leading exponents 
of the Southern Democracy, in commenting on the murderous 
assault on Senator Sumner, said : — 

" Sumner and Sumner's fiiends, must be punished and silenced. Either 
such wretches must be hung or put in the penitentiary, or the South should 
prepare at once to quit the Union. 

" Let the South present a compact and undivided front. Let her, if 
possible, detach Pennsylvania and southern Ohio, southern Lidiana, and 
southern Illinois from the North, and make the highlands between the 
Ohio and the lakes the dividing line. Let the South treat with Calitbrnia ; 
and, if necessary, ally herself with Russia, with Cuba, and Brazil." 

Senator Iverson, of Georgia, in a speech made to his constitu- 
ents previous to the assembling of the second session of the 
36th Congress, said : — 

" Slavery must be maintained — in the Union, if possible ; out of it, if 
necessary ; peaceably, if we may, forcibly, if we must. * * * 

" In a confederated government of their own, the Southern States would 
enjoy sources of wealth, prosperity, and power, unsurpassed by any nation 
on earth. No neutrality laws would restrain our adventurous sons. Our 
expanding policy would stretch far beyond present limits. Central Amer- 
ica would join her destiny to ours, and so would Cuba, now withheld from 
us by the voice and votes of abolition enemies." 

In an elaborate speech in the Senate, the same Senator said : — 

" Sir, there is but one path of safety to the South ; but one mode of 
preserving her institution of domestic slavery ; and that is a confederacy 
of States having no incongruous and opposing elements — a confederacy of 
slave States alone, with homogeneous language, laws, interests, and institu- 
tions. Under such a confederated Republic, with a Constitution which 



14 

should shut out the approach and entrance of all incongruous and conflict- 
ing elements, which should protect the institution from change, and keep 
the whole nation ever bound to its preservation, by an unchangeable funda- 
mental law, the fifteen slave States, with their power of expansion, would 
present to the world the most free, prosperous, and happy nation on the 
face of the wide earth." 

Senator Brown, of Mississippi, in a recent speech to bis constit- 
uents, said : — 

^^ I want Cuba; I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexi- 
can States ; and I tvant them all for the same reason — -for the planting and 
spreading of slavery. And a footing in Central America will powerfully 
aid us in acquiring those other States. Yes; I want these countries for the 
spread of slavery. I would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion 
of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth ; and, rebellious 
and wicked as the Yankees have been, / would even extend it to them. * * 

" Whether we can obtain the territory while the Union lasts, I do not 
know ; I fear we cannot. But I would make an honest effort, and if we 
failed, I would go out of the Union, and try it there. I speak plainly — I 
would make a refusal to acquire territory because it was to be slave terri- 
tory, a cause of disunion, just as I would make the refusal to admit a new 
State, because it was to be a slave State, a cause for disunion." * * 

Hon. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, made a violent speech in the 
Senate, January, 1860, in which he said : — 

^^ Never permit this Federal Government to pass into the traitorous hands 
of the Black Republican party. It has already declared war against you 
and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against you ; it 
has already compelled you to arm for your defence. Listen to 'no vain 
babblings,' to no treacherous jargon about ' overt acts ; ' they have already 
been committed. Defend yourselves ; the enemy is at your door ; wait not 
to meet him at the hearthstone, — meet him at the door-sill, and drive him 
from the temple of liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a 
common ruin." 

Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, in a speech in relation to the 
proper causes for disunion, said : — 

" In my judgment, the election of the presidential candidate of the Black 
Republican party will furnish that cause. ***** 

" No other ' overt act ' can so imperatively demand resistance on our part 
as the simple election of their candidate. Their organization is one of 
avowed hostility, and they come against us as enemies.'' * * * 

These numerous propositions and threats of disunion and war 
were only the outcroppings of deep laid plots, ramifying through 
every department of the government and involving men high in 
office, from the heads of departments downwards. They were 
the utterances of men of aristocratic tendencies, whose haughty 



15 

spirits fretted at being compelled to stand up on the comparative 
level of democratic ideas and institutions. They had morbid 
cravings for an aristocratic form of government, witli its orders 
of nobility, and hereditary titles and distinctions, which should 
lift them above and separate them forever from the great mass of 
the people. These they would keep in a state of brutish igno- 
rance, so that, while toiling to support their lords, they would 
look up to tliera, as the dull ox looks to his master, as superior 
beings on whom they were dependent for food, shelter and 
protection. 

Had these plotters of Treason and Rebellion, any real grounds 
of complaint against the government ? It is well known that 
Alexander H. Stephens was strongly opposed to Secession, and 
breasted the current to the last. The following extracts from a 
speech delivered by him in the Georgia Convention in January, 
1861, give some of his reasons for opposing Secession, and at the 
same time furnish an answer to the above inquiry : 

"What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has 
been invaded ? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded 
in justice and right has been withheld ? Can either of you to-day name 
one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the 
government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain ? 
I challenge the answer ! While on the other hand, let me show the facts, 
of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear 
and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of 
our country. 

" AVhen we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the importation 
of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for 
twenty years ? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress 
for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the 
return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing 
labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution ? and again 
ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 ? 

" But do you reply, that in many instances they have violated this com- 
pact, and have not been faithful to their engagements ? As individuals and 
local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of gov- 
ernment; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again, 
gentlemen, look at another tact : when we have asked that more territory 
should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they 
not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas? 

'* But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change 
of our relation to the general government ? We have always had the 
control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have 
been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South ; 
as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the 
North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty- 



16 

four, thus controlling the Executive department. So of the judges of the 
Supreme Court, Ave have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven 
from the North ; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has 
arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been 
from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any inter- 
pretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have 
been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative branch of 
government. In choosing the presiding Presidents {jiro tern,) of the 
Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House, 
we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the 
Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the 
!North, yet we have so generally secured the S[)eaker, because he, to a 
great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have 
we had less control in every other department of the general government. 
Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but 
five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. 
While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents 
abroad is clearly fi-om the Free States, from their greater commercial 
interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world 
markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar oq the best possible terms. We 
have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, 
while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the 
North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors and Comptrollers filling the 
Executive department ; the records show for the last fifty years, that of the 
thi'ee thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the 
same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic. 

" Again, look at another item. From official documents, we learn that a 
fraction over three-fourths of the revenue coltected for the support of 
government, has uniformly been raised from the North. 

" Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars 
you must expend in a w^ar with the North ; with tens of thousands of your 
sons and brothers slain in battle, and ofi'ered up as sacrifices upon the altar 
of your ambition, — and for what, we ask again ? Is it for the overthrow 
of tlie American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented 
and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles 
of Right, Justice, and Humanity ? And, as such, I must declare here, as I 
have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and 
wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best 
and freest government — the most equal in its rights — the most just in its 
decisions — the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its 
principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. 

" Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, is the 
height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my 
sanction nor my vote." 

But reason was dethroned in the rebel councils ; and Mr. 
Stephens, overwhelmed by the irresistible tide of treason, accepted 
the Yice-Presidency of the Slave Confederacy ; and then in the 
spring of the same year — 1861 — made another speech at Savannah, 
Ga., in which he explains the distinctive feature of his new 
Government as follows : — 



17 

" The new constitution has put at rest forever, all the agitating questions 
relating to our peculiar institutions — African slavery as it exists among us 
— the pi'oper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was 
the immediate cause of the late rupture, and present revolution. Jefferson 
in his forecast had anticipated this as the ' rock on which the old Union 
would split.' * * But whether he fully comprehended the great truth 
upon which that rock stood, and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing 
ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of 
the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the 
African was in violation of the laws of nature. That it was wrong in 
principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not 
well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was, 
that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would 
be evanescent and pass away. This idea though not incorporated in the 
Constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. Those ideas, however, 
were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the 
equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation ; and 
the idea of a government built upon it ; when the storm came and the 
wind blew it fell. 

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its 
foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the 
negro is not equal to the white man — that slavery, subordination to the 
superior race, is his natural and normal condition. 

" This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, ' is become the 
chief head of the corner ' in our new edifice." 

I 

The full significance of this language may be learned bj 

referring back to the extract from the " Charleston Mercury^^ 
which declares in the precise words of Mr. Stephens, that 
" Slavery '■is the natural and normal condition^ of the laboring 
man whether ivhite or black.'''' 

In an elaborate address of Hon. L. W. Spratt, of South Carolina, 
to the confederate congress, at Montgomery, in 1861, in which he 
insists, that the enslavement of at least one-half of the population 
of any State is absolutely essential to its stability and safety, 
occur the following among many similar passages :— 

" The South is now in the formation of a slave republic. This, perhaps, 
is not admitted generally. There are many contented to believe that the 
South as a mere geographical section, is in mere assertion of its indepen- 
dence ; that it is instinct with no especial truth — pregnant of no distinct 
social nature ; that for some unaccountable reason the two sections have 
become opposed to each other ; that for reasons equally insufficient, there 
is disagreement between the peoples that direct them ; and that from no 
overruling necessity, no impossibility of coexistence, but as mere matter 
of policy, it has been considered best for the South to strike out for herself, 
and establish an independence of her own. This I fear is an inadequate 
conception of the controversy. 



18 

" The contest is not between the North and South as geographical sections, 
for between such sections merely, there can be no contest ; nor between the 
people of the North and the people of the South, for our relations have been 
pleasant, and on neutral grounds there is still nothing to estrange us." 

* * * " But the real contest lies between the two forms of society which 
have become established, the one at the North and the other at the South." 

* * " Society is essentially different from government." * * « And 
•within this government, two societies had become developed, as variant in 
structure and distinct in form as any two beings in animated nature. * * 
The one is bound together by the two great social relations of husband 
and wife, and parent and child ; the other by the three relations of husband 
and wife, and parent and child, and master and slave. The one embodies 
in its political structure the principle that equality is the right of man ; the 
other that it is the right of equals only. The one embodying the principle 
that equality is the right of man, expands upon the horizontal plane of a 
pure democracy ; the other embodying the principle that it is not the right 
of man, but of equals only, has taken to itself the rounded form of a social 
aristocracy." * * * * " Jq the one, therefore, the reins of govern- 
ment come from the heels, in the other, from the head of the society. In 
the one it is guided by the worst, in the other by the best intelligence." 
« * * * « jjj {jjg Qjjg^ tjjg pauper laborer has the power to rise and 
appropriate by law, the goods protected by the State — when pressure 
comes, as come it must, there will be the motive to exert it — and thus the 
ship of State turns bottom upwards. In the other, there is no pauper 
labor with the power of rising ; the ship of State has the ballast of a dis- 
franchised class ; there is no possibility of a political upheaval, therefore, 
and it is reasonably certain, that so steadied, it will sail erect and onward 
to an indefinitely distant period." ***** 

" Such are the two forms of society which had come to contest within 
the structure of the recent Union, and the contest for existence was inevi- 
table. Neither could concur in the requisitions of the other." * * * 
" Like an eagle and a fish joined together by an indissoluble bond, * * 
where the eagle could not share the fluid suited to the fish and live, 
where the fish could not share the fluid suited to the bird and live, and 
where one must perish that the other may survive, unless the unnatural 
union shall be severed — so these societies, would not if they could, concur. 
The principle that races are unequal, would have been destructive to the 
form of pure democracy at the North. The principle that all men are 
equal, would have been destructive of Slavery at the South. Each required 
the element suited to its social nature. Each must strive to make the gov- 
ernment expressive of its social nature. The natural expansion of the 
one, must become encroachment on the other ; and so the contest was 
inevitable. Sewai'd and Lincoln, in theory at least, whatever be their aim, 
are right. I realized the fact, and so declared the contest irrepressible 
years before either ventured to advance that proposition." 

" The officers of the State are slave-owners, and the representatives of 
slave-owners. In their public acts they exhibit the consciousness of a 
superior position. Without unusual individual ability, they exhibit the 
elevation of tone and composure of public sentiment proper to a master 
class. There is no appeal to the mass, for there is no mass to appeal to. 
There are no demagogues, for there is no populace to breed them. Judges 



19 

are not forced upon the stump ; governors are not dragged before the 
people ; and when there is cause to act upon the fortunes of our social 
histitutions, there is perhaps, an unusual readiness to meet it." * * » 
" With that perfect economy of resources, that just application of power, 
that concentration of forces, that security of order which results to Slavery 
from the permanent direction of its best intelligence, there is no other form 
of human labor that can stand against it, and it will build for itself a home, 
and erect for itself, at some point within the present limits of the Southern 
States, a structure of imperial power and grandeur — a glorious confederacy 
of States that will stand aloft and serene for ages amid the anarchy of 
democracies that will reel around it." 

Here we have the cahu, philosophical reasoning of cool-headed, 
calculating statesmen, wherein they dispose of human beings, 
with all their immortal powers and interests, as if they were no 
other than herds of unreasoning brutes. " Equals have rights," 
say they, " unequals " have no rights, except such as the " master 
race " may allow. • Mr. Stephens only desi^^nates " negroes " as 
the " race " to be disfranchised, owned, and disposed of by the 
" master class." 

" DeBoiv^s New Orleans Review " says : " The right to govern 
resides iu a very small minority ; the duty to obey, is inherent in 
the great mass of mankind." 

Mr. Spratt, with a candor surpassing prudence, perhaps, de- 
clares, that " the mass," the " populace," " the people," are to be 
" owned," " disfranchised," and put down as " ballast to the ship 
of state." And he plainly tells those Northern doughfaces who 
have so long clung to the skirts of the slave power, and de- 
nounced every man as a traitor who has dared to say that free- 
dom and slavery could not live together in peaceful union, that 
such a union is impossible in the very nature of things, — as 
every-body, not a blind worshiper of Southern aristocracy, knew 
before. The North, he tells, them, is a Democracy ; the South, 
an Aristocracy : and these two can never live in peace under one 
government. Both will strive to make the government represent 
its ideas, and serve its purposes. And as " no man can serve two 
masters," so no government can serve two such opposing princi- 
ples. Whichever prospers, prospers at the expense of the other. 
If Aristocracy is strengthened, Democracy is weakened and ulti- 
mately destroyed. If Democracy is strengthened, then Aristoc- 
racy goes down before it. He declared the conflict between the 
two " irrepressible " years ago. 



20 

Although this sort of testimony might be multiplied indefi- 
nitely, we forbear, as enough has been presented to prove beyond 
cavil that the movers and leaders in this Rebellion have but one 
fell purpose, to establish a dismal and devilish despotism on the 
ruins of our American liberties. 

They are not oppressed subjects rebelling against the tyrannical 
usurpations of a wicked government : for they have again and 
acrain confessed that the only ground of their Rebellion is, that 
the government is not despotic and tyrannical enough to suit 

them. ^ ;i ^A 

Had the government continued wicked enough, and could 
they have used it for the purpose of robbing all laboring men, 
white as well as black, of every right which God ever gave them, 
and established themselves as the permanent and unquestioned 
lords and masters of this continent, they never would have 
made this insurrection. 

They have rebelled against our government for the sole reason 
that it is too good for them. And here we have at last, in our 
own beloved country, a parallel to that insurrection in Heaven 
so graphically described by Milton. And in this case, as in that, 

" Devil with devil damned firm concord holds " 

for the accomplishment of their infernal aims, which are to 
" subdue " and " crush out " the Liberties of the people, North 
and South, and convert the whole nation into one grand slave- 
holding despotism, which shall grind the masses under its lordly 
and imperious heel. 

There is no middle ground, and no other issue involved in tins 

contest. 

" Choose ye, this day, whom ye will serve." 



Wright & Potter, Printers, No. 4 Spring Lane. 



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